Spin this

It’s time once again for a spinning wrap-up post. It’s not anything to do with Tour de Fleece, just my regular turns at wheel and spindles. As usual, spinning here at Mmm… Yarn goes in spurts: I spin every couple of days for a while, then both wheel and spindles sit doing nothing for weeks at a time. Production has been good despite this.

In 2007 I went to Lambtown for the first time and came home with a sack of 2-color Jacob fiber from Meridian Jacobs:

It sat around, not because spinning up this much was daunting, but because (1) every time I looked at it (not often) I was undecided whether to spin each color separately or create a marled yarn and (2) I didn’t want to give up a great means of handwarming. This stuff is so warm that whenever my hands were cold I plunged them into the bag for a few minutes. In October I finally said “marl it!”, split the entire bundle in half, roughly separated it into its two colors, and quickly spun up 2 plies of each color. Instead of resting overnight on the bobbins it rested 3 months (remember what I said about spinning going in spurts?); in January I plied it.

The fiber had plenty of lanolin left in it plus a fair bit of vegetable matter that I had to pick out as I spun. I didn’t worry about spinning it evenly, decided to go for a rustic yarn. I had 10g of natural brown left over at the end so I made 19 yards of skinny little 2-ply:

I believe I should knit a set of rectangular coat pocket liners with this stuff to replace my Big Sack of Warm-Handed Goodness, because I do miss it. Even in nearly August.

I was quicker to spin and ply this merino and silk blend from Opulent Fibers. I had taken a spindling class in December in which I learned to spin over the fold. This is my first go at spinning over the fold while on a wheel. The result is decidedly thick and thin:

While the new drafting technique definitely contributed to the thick and thin effect in the finished yarn, I can’t say it’s necessarily the main reason. I found drafting this evenly to be difficult in general. It’s some pretty slippery stuff which is not what I usually experience with Tussah silk. Maybe it’s the super-fineness of the merino that made it more slippery. Tussah is usually more grabby and I have problems with clumping rather than with fiber slipping so fast I can barely hold on to it.

This green merino is some of the first spinning fiber I ever bought. I remember I used some of it early on when I first learned to spin but was so discouraged that I didn’t want to use my “good” fiber on bad skill. I spun up the rest of it in May. It was my usual merino experience: smooth and easy.

A Verb For Keeping Warm had some temptingly pink Blue Face Leicester that caught my eye during the spindling class in December and I bought two 2-ounce bundles of it.

Fiber: 100% Blue Face Leicester by A Verb For Keeping WarmQuantity: 115gFinished yarn: 2-ply, 174 yards
Spun over the fold, ply 1 on 2/20, ply 2 on 5/21, and plied on 5/25/2012 all at 15:1 on a Lendrum wheel

My over the fold draft has gotten far better here! I find BFL easy to work with in general. The fiber grabs the next bit of itself so neatly that I was able to relax and just let each fold pull the next one. The only time I had to slow down was when joining the next bunch of fiber.

There’s more spinning but this is enough of a post for one day. I need to get back to my knitting. My mom is visiting me next week and I’d like her to have at least a half-finished body of a sweater to try on then and as I write this, the body is only 25% done.